Remember that kid in school that knew way to much about movies and television? Yeah well, I'm what he grew up to be.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Being Human (US Series)

Being Human (US Series):

Sam Huntington Is Still A Worthless Pile

And Other Watered Down Drivel Aimed At Twi-hards

As many of you long time readers know, I am a rather large fan of the British sci fi series "Being Human", its well written, well acted and cast, and is just the greatest sci fi series out there right now, well aside from Doctor Who ofcourse, but as long time readers and friends of mine will tell you, for me The Doctor is in a class all of his own and can't be counted among the teaming masses. Anyway, after spending two years in complete and utter nerdlust with the original, word comes out that recently renamed american network SyFy (ugh...) would, as its first original series under its new name and concept, remake the British series for american viewers, because, you know, SyFy'll be damned if BBC America makes that sweet sweet cash from all those fans of vampires, ghosts, werewolves, and whatever other things everyone in the world knows Stephenie Meyer created with the Twilight books and films.

I have to admit when I first heard word of this, I cringed, and then cried, honestly, we Americans can make a fine good show on our own, SyFy has afew rather good ones themselves infact; Warehouse 13, Eureka, ect. But when it comes to America remaking a series from another country, it just doesn't really work out all that well. Sure The Office was a hit and the Showtime version of Shameless (will be writing about this later this week) is showing alot of promise, as were some classic shows like All In The Family and Three's Company to name just two, but well, the diamonds are few and far between when you're standing in a pile of coal (A point I'll expand on later this week when I write about Top Gear USA, its kind of US Remake Week here!).

Its hard to really pin down exactly what is the worst thing about this show, because there are many things wrong honestly. The writing is completely rushed, they were trying to cram bits from atleast four episodes worth of the original series into one pilot episode, it felt confused and rushed and sort of sloppily put together, almost as if the writers have no idea at all what they were writing about or maybe even didn't care about it enough to make an attempt. The characters names are all completely different, and only have vague likeness to their counterparts, this problem spills into the extended cast as well, or in the case of one character completely made up, its confusing, offputting and just plain depressing.. here let me show you what I mean, here is the character list...

Sally Andrews (Meaghan Rath) is an insecure ghost who haunts the house she and her fiancé lived in while she was alive, and is unwilling to leave it. Sally appears in the clothes she was wearing when she died which change subtly depending on her state of mind. In the first episode, she is introduced as a very afraid ghost who doesn't trust herself to unlock the past with her ex-fiance.

This is their take on Annie Sawyer, and instead of making her anything at all like Annie, other then her cloths and that she haunts the house, they decided to go the whole 1991 movie Ghost route, you know, because they're completely out of ideas otherwise. Interestingly, they state that Sally has been living in the house with them for awhile before they actually see her, which makes no sense given that its explained afew minutes later that vampires, werewolves, ghosts and other supernaturals can see and sense each other. It was a giant plothole that makes me wonder if it wasn't a case of "oh wiat, we gotta put this in there.. its in the original.." and just shoehorning something in. Its still a glaringly annoying plothole that yells at you in a booming voice that echoes from the endless depths of hell itself.

Joshua "Josh" Radcliff (Sam Huntington) is a nerdy, paranoid hospital worker who suffers from being a werewolf every full moon. Once twilight comes around, he begins to act funny. In the first episode, it is revealed that he chose to leave his family because of his situation, having disappeared for 2 years. One night when his sister, Emily, having finally discovered him, followed him downstairs in the hospital, where she witnessed the secret he hid for such a long time and the reason why he left. Aidan and Sally were called and Josh asks them to help his sister get out before he fully transforms and kills her.

The fact that Josh is played by horrible waist of skin Sam Huntington, whom not only is a worthless person, but seems to be the kiss of death to both movies and television series he seems to be on, which probably won't work well for the series as it is. But more so then that, Josh is a horriblely flawed character, he lacks any of the charm and likeability of George Sands, the character he is supposed to be the american take on. He is devoid of real personality, Josh is nervous and worries and depressive, but thats it, there is no hint of the intelligence and geekness and more importantly, the actually looking kind of like a werewolf, George actually looks like he could be a werewolf, Josh just looks like the douchebag at the comic shop that just dropped $500 on Magic: The Gathering cards, even though no one's played that game for over 10 years, and you find yourself caring about him even less then you would a guy like that. Also, George never had a gay sister, I have a feeling they tossed her in instead of Nina because some idiot said a budget wouldn't allow for two werewolf transformations, the same reason I'm sure there won't be much Sally ghosty stuff.

Ian Daniel "Aidan" McCollin (Sam Witwer) is a quiet, calm vampire who is over 200 years old and presently works as a nurse in Boston. He is best friends with Josh, who always encourages him to live as a normal person. When he meets Rebbecca, a coworker, he is tempted to bite and drink her blood. He accidentally killed Rebecca, and did his best to cover up the event by calling a morgue run by a fellow vampire.

Apparently he's called Aidan as a send up to Aidan Turner, the man that plays John Mitchell in the original Being Human, however there is no explanation that his name is anything other then Aidan, he's simply just called it for some reason, and honestly unless you read the profiles or the wiki, you'd never have a clue that his name is actually Ian. You would also have no real idea that the show is now set in Boston if not for his profile as well. Aidan falls into the category of being just tossed together with no real idea what is going on with him. As I had feared, Aidan is complete and utter pandering to the twilight fans out there, with him looking like a mix of Robert Pattinson and professional wrestler Randy Orton, with a stare thats completely devoid of anything remotely close to emotion, or even anything hinting at cognitive thought. Its almost painful to watch him honestly. Especially when he's talking to the other vampires in these confusing shady conversations that really don't do anything but lead up to more confusion and WTF-ness.

The characters don't even really touch the tip of the iceberg of whats wrong with this show, its just so disjointed and confused and rushed, its a mess from start to end, even if there are some small glimmers of possible hope that shine through at times, it doesn't make up for the massive amount wrong. The premise has been changed, the idea is just so contorted and twisted and stretched from what its supposed to be that its almost just a vague afterthought. Its pretty depressing honestly given the premise that this show had. But sadly, it just did what many other shows in the same vain have done, fallen into the same pit as the rest. Truly depressing really.